‘Not just yoga, students need holistic intervention for fitness’

Most recently, schools in the Tricity, constituted by the cities of Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali, have been asked to conduct Fit India Week, under which each student has to participate in at least a 20-minute-long yoga class every day.

“This is not just for this week, but the government wants us to make sure that students do yoga throughout the year, and become competitively good at it. All schools have been instructed to make sure that yoga classes are held regularly,” says a source from the office of the District Education Officer (DEO), Chandigarh.

However, principals and physical education teachers in the city, who are primarily responsible for carrying out the exercise, are unsure of its benefits.

“We have no problem conducting yoga, but we have no time or resources to conduct it every morning. It is so cold outside so mostly the students have to do the activities while seated in their classrooms,” says a government school teacher form the city.

“Often our PE teachers cannot cater to the student population of the entire school and the class teachers, who have no proper qualifications to teach yoga, have to conduct a few basic activities,” adds the principal.

Apart from the lack of resources to conduct yoga classes, doctors express that when yoga is done improperly, it can cause more damage than good. “The benefits of yoga are multifold and there is no doubt about that, but yoga cannot be conducted in a hurry,” says Dr Ravi Gupta, a Medical Superintendent at GMCH in Sector 32, and a sports injury specialist.

“Yoga needs to be adapted and customised to the demands of each body. The students will benefit from it significantly if they do the proper yoga exercises for their body,” says Gupta.

Naveen, a yoga instructor from Panchkula, who has also taught classes at schools across the Tricity, says that it is essential to teach yoga to school children, but one should make sure that only qualified instructors take these classes.

“There are some basic yoga exercises that everyone can follow without any danger to the body, but the more complex exercises which can truly make an intervention in one’s health, need to be conducted in the care and watch of a specialist,” says Naveen.

The need for extensive intervention in the students’ physical fitness is compounded by findings of the recent Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey, which revealed that about 10 per cent of all children and adolescents in India are pre-diabetic.

In Punjab alone, more than 13 per cent children and adolescents are pre-diabetic.

“Exercise alone cannot make much of intervention in our health. Children from the region have poor eating habits which need to be amended, and this would take a sustained effort,” says Gupta.

Critical of the evidence provided to support claims on the benefits of Yoga, Gupta says, “Though yoga is a scientific exercise, there have sadly been no legitimate research conducted on the extent of its benefits.”

“It should surely be practiced, but not on the basis of common knowledge and heresy, rather on the basis of expertise and scientific research,” he adds.